The Association of Motion Picture Sound (AMPS) announced that Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley have won the 2014 AMPS award for excellence in sound for a feature film for their work on Whiplash.
“We’re elated to have won,” said Wilkins. “There’s no better feeling than to have hard work appreciated by your peers.”
The AMPS awards will be presented to the winners at an event later this year. AMPS members who have creatively contributed to the winning soundtrack will each receive certificates of merit.
Five films exhibited in 2014 were selected by an AMPS awards committee, from which the three leading sound crew members (production sound, sound editing and re-recording) were nominated for an award. A further ballot among all AMPS voting members selected the winning film.
The nominees were Wayne Lemmer, Christopher Scarabosio and Pawel Wdowczak for The Grand Budapest Hotel; Mike Prestwood-Smith, Renee Tondelli and John Casali for Into The Woods; Mann, Wilkins and Curley for Whiplash; Stuart Hilliker, Lee Walpole and John Midgley for The Imitation Game; and Paul Massey, Oliver Tarney and David Stephenson for Exodus: Gods and Kings.
“The AMPS awards group would like to congratulate all the sound professionals who contributed to the sound of Whiplash and wish them luck in both the BAFTA and Academy Awards,” said Chris Munro of the AMPS awards group.
Whiplash is also nominated for an Oscar for sound mixing and for sound at the BAFTA awards.
The award program was created in celebration of the Association’s 25th anniversary in 2014 with plans to expand in future years to include a broader selection of creative sound technicians as well as encompassing television sound and gaming.
